National Coral Reef Monitoring Program

Climate Monitoring Brief: Dry Tortugas National Park


New Subsurface Temperature Recorder depolyed at White Shoal in Dry Tortugas National Park

Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory Coral Program
University of Miami Cooperative Institute of Marine and Atmospheric Science
National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration


N. Besemer, A. Palacio, M. Jankulak, G. Kolodziej, I. Enochs - July 2021

About this summary brief

The NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorolgical Laboratory (AOML) conducts the long-term National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) to track the status and trends of coral reef ecosystems of the U.S. Atlantic and Caribbean coral reef jurisdictions. This FY21 summary brief provides an overview of the most recent survey efforts.

Expedition summary

Spatial sample design

Survey site locations were selected to represent temporal‐resolution monitoring with moored instruments at fixed time‐series. These sites were placed on depth gradient to assess how vertical structure affects reef status and trends. Pulaski Shoal (1m), White Shoal (5m), Bird Key Reef (15m), and Black Coral Rock (25m) are the selected study sites.

Figure 1: Map of study sites in Dry Tortugas National Park area

Temperature Data

Subsurface Temperature Recorder (STR)s made by SeaBird Electronics were placed at all 4 sites and collected temperature measurements at 5-minute intervals for 3 years.

Plot option 1:

Figure 2: Temperature data collected for 3 years at four sites in the Dry Tortugas at 1 m (Pulaski Shoal Lighthouse), 5m (White Shoal), 15m (Bird Key Reef) and 25 m (Black Coral Rock).The 1m, 5m, and 15m collected data for the full deployment. The 25m STR stopped collecting on Febuary 7th 2020.


Diurnal Suite Deployment

At Bird Key Reef additional instruments were deployed for a 72-hour diurnal suite. SeaFET pH logger, Tiltmeter and EcoPAR collected measurements at 5-minute intervals. Subsurface Automatic Samplers (SAS) collected discrete water samples at three-hour intervals (n=24).

Figure 3: pH, temperature, current and PAR collected from instrument deployment at Bird Key Reef site around 15 meters from June 25th to June 28th. Grey blocks denote night time through out sequence of plot. Instruments measured parameters every 5 minutes.


Summary table

By year and region

Data Number of observations Days running Notes
Temperature (STRs) 1.1 million 700 days 4 depths
pH 879 3 days 1 depth
Light 876 3 days 1 depth
Current 880 3 days 1 depth

About the monitoring program

AOML’s climate monitoring is a key part of the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program of NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP), providing integrated, consistent, and comparable data across U.S. Managed coral reef ecosystems. CRCP monitoring efforts aim to:

Point of Contact

Atlantic Climate team lead:

Principal Investigator:

NCRMP Coordinator:

For more information

Coral Reef Conservation Program: http://coralreef.noaa.gov

NCRMP climate page: https://www.coris.noaa.gov/monitoring/climate.html

NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/

Florida Coral Reef Status Report 2020

Acknowledgements

These efforts were jointly funded by NOAA’s CRCP and OAP. We would like to thank the National Park Service and Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary for permitting support and the ANGARI Foudnation for field support.

Our Team

Field team members: Anderson Mayfield, Graham Kolodziej, Nicole Besemer, Nathan Formel, Patrick Kiel

Field team members: Anderson Mayfield, Graham Kolodziej, Nicole Besemer, Nathan Formel, Patrick Kiel